This invention relates generally to the treating of livestock and more particularly but not by way of limitation to a cattle oiler for supplying oil, insecticides or the like to the skin of the animal.
Heretofore numerous types of livestock treaters having rubbing tubes are known in the prior art for dispensing treating fluids such as oil, insecticides or mixtures thereof onto the skin of livestock such as hogs, cattle, etc. However, the prior art devices are deficient in that they are not always operated properly by the rubbing motion of the livestock. For instance, some of the prior art devices require vertical motion of a rubbing surface to activate a mechanism to dispense additional fluid onto the rubbing surface to replace that which is rubbed away. With this type of device the rubbing surface often becomes dry because the animal rubbing does not always produce the vertical motion of the rubbing surface that is necessary to cause the fluid to be dispensed and hence the effectiveness of the treater is limited.
Other known prior art livestock treaters require an oscilating motion of the rubbing surface to cause the fluid to be dispensed onto the rubbing surface. With these prior art rubbing devices the animal is likely to push against the rubbing surface and not release it until he is through scratching therefore the rubbing surface is not moved in the oscilating manner that is required to cause the treating fluid to be dispensed.
Also there are other prior art livestock treaters which have a rotating rubbing surface which when rotated causes fluids to be dispensed onto the animal. With this type of livestock treater if the animal rubs against the rubbing surface without sufficiently rotating the rub tube no fluid is dispensed onto the rubbing surface and the rubbing surface soon becomes dry and the device is ineffective.